Supports Pillars:
Product
Dependencies on Other Skills:
Definition:
Agile Team members know that no one understands the value of potential features better than the real, paying client (or end-user). Teams seek out face-to-face communication with customers during development to confirm understanding and to validate alternative solutions.
Resources:
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/customer.html
Decomposition of the Skill:
Experienced developers new to this skill are focused on asking questions about what the product should do instead of guessing.
Direct customer interaction depends on trust and keeping communication channels open--thus it depends on Peer-to-Peer Feedback.
This skill requires discernment of business decisions from technical concerns, and focuses on getting the right people to make those decisions. While this may mean business decisions are made by the customer/business, it often means these decisions are made by a subset of the team, including at least the customer's opinion.
Developers ask the customer to clarify the core need in a feature, uncovering the ultimate goal, and considering alternative solutions.
Organizational Support of this Skill:
Organizations can support this skill by inviting a client to join the team, full-time. The client is ideally proficient in the domain, experienced in a wide variety of tasks that the development team intends to address, and is a creative problem-solver.